Jingoism
by InactiveNoLongerUsed
Summary: Rose didn't anticipate on all the changes that war would bring to her life, especially where one Scorpius Malfoy was concerned. Rated T for swearing. Written for HPFC.
1. Part I

**This was written for Blood and Moonshadows's 'The Dictionary Competition!'. The word that my story had to revolve around was: **_**jingoism: extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially ****by a belligerent foreign policy**_**. May I just say that I was going to do a really light, funny, fluffy story but it turned into this. I don't even know why I wrote it. I guess it's because when I was younger I used to devour stories about the First and Second World War and so always wanted to write a 'war' story, although this story isn't nearly as centred on war as it is on Scorpius/Rose's relationship. **

**Enjoy and I'd love to hear what you think about it :)!**

* * *

The first time Rose read a dictionary properly was when she was ten years old. It was just before she received her Hogwarts acceptance letter in June, and her whole family was outdoors either watching or playing Quidditch. Rose hated Quidditch with a passion that even she was surprised that she possessed. It might have had something to do with her father riding with her on a broom when she was five and accidentally dropping her on the ground, causing a large lump that stayed on her head for approximately two months. Or it could have been the time her cousin James barrelled into her when he was involved in a particularly aggressive form of the sport, causing him to break his nose and her to break one or two finger bones. Maybe it was even the time that her family had decided to go to a Quidditch game instead of the concert of one of Rose's favourite singers. All these reasons were besides the point, though. The fact was that there was no way in hell that she was going outside when they were playing _Quidditch_ of all things.

The dictionary had just been sitting there, on the coffee table - no doubt it was Hermione's fault in part, as she was often seen looking up words in the dictionaries for no reason other than that she wanted variety in her day-to-day speech. Rose had been bored out of her mind, and had actually taken to counting the many different stains on the carpet when her eyes had alighted on the massive book. The idea of reading it passed fleetingly into her mind and, seeing as how she had nothing better to do, Rose picked it up and started to read.

She managed to get up to the 'D' section on that first day. Mind buzzing with new words, she had impressed her family members with her new-found knowledge. Or, rather, she had impressed Hermione. Ron had muttered something about the apple never falling far from the tree and Hugo had started to eat his dinner with his fingers. The Potters and the other Weasleys had all gone back to their own homes for dinner so they missed out on Rose explaining the words 'chauvinism' and 'belligerent'.

The next day she spent the whole of the day reading that dictionary. She finished on the letter 'I' incredibly, although she was so tired and her head was so crammed with information that she felt as though she could in equal parts explode and/or sleep. The day after reaching 'I', Rose took a break and went down to the playground with Hugo and Hermione. The day after that, she received her Hogwarts acceptance letter and celebrated her eleventh birthday. As luck - or Hermione - would have it, one of the presents was a small, leatherbound dictionary. It was by far simpler than the one she had been reading, but Rose loved it.

So it was that she read the entire contents of the small dictionary by the end of the summer holidays. Most of the words were the kind you just couldn't use in every day speech, yet two of these words stuck in her head. The first one was 'zyzzyva', which was the name for several different kinds of South American weevils and was the last entry in her little dictionary. The second one was 'jingoism', which was the kind of word that's description involved her looking up more words so she could make sense of it.

On September 1st, she started her first term at Hogwarts and the little dictionary lay in a cupboard in her room back at home, collecting dust. On 30th of November three years later, the wizarding and Muggle world changed forever when a war broke out in Europe due to the failing resources, and both wizards and Muggles of age were called upon to help.

* * *

**19th January 2022**

"I feel useless," Scorpius growled as they lay on the grass outside Hogwarts, near the giant lake. Scorpius was twirling his wand around and around his fingers absent-mindedly, his thoughts far away from the school.

Rose frowned at her friend, rolling onto her side so that she could look him in the eye. "Why?"

"Don't be stupid, Rose. You know why," he sighed, closing his eyes. "I want to do something. I want to help in this stupid war. I hate this feeling of not being able to do anything."

Rose felt as though the whole sky had darkened around her, and suddenly the air seemed much colder. "You're too young, Scorpius. You can't even legally use magic outside of Hogwarts."

"I know, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to help, does it?" his voice sounded desperate, filled with the longing. Rose hated to think that he wanted to fight. She remembered her parents and her grandparents telling of the wars they had lived through and how, no matter how many helped, somebody always ended up dying. Fear shot through her as she imagined Scorpius being killed by an Unforgivable Curse, somewhere far away and beyond her reach.

Rose's voice broke. "Scorpius, don't do that. Please. My cousins are all talking about it. Heck, James is Merlin knows where, fighting and risking death right now, probably. So is Fred and Teddy and Victoire... and so many others. I don't know if I could handle it if you left as well."

Scorpius opened his eyes and looked at her seriously. Even though she was terrified at the very thought of him going away, she still didn't miss the goosebumps that broke out on her skin as she stared into his eyes. She wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, to hold him. Now wasn't the right time, though, she sensed. It was too soon to be sure of her feelings for him. It might be just a passing fancy. She didn't want to ruin their already fragile relationship - borne out of the knowledge that in these times, if you didn't trust somebody then they were on the wrong side.

"Don't you get it? If I didn't fight as soon as possible, then I'd be a coward just like Father and Grandfather. Do you really think I want to be known as just another Malfoy who didn't have enough guts to fight for what he believed in?" Scorpius's voice was harsh, and Rose realised just how much weight the reputations of his family burdened him. "It's alright for you. Your parents were heroes, your uncles and aunts were on the right side and some of them were heroes themselves. You have Harry fucking Potter on your family tree. If you don't fight then it's fine."

Rose looked away from him, knowing that he was, in a sense, right. "It's just... I don't want you to die."

"At least I'll have died for a good cause. Besides, I _want_ to fight. I _want _to have revenge. I don't want all those people to have died in vain. I want people to know that I was on the right side," the sun shone through the clouds again, but Rose felt that it was mocking rather than happy. She had heard people talk as Scorpius did so many times in the past few years that she thought it wouldn't hurt as much as it did.

"Is there really a right side this time, Malfoy?" as always, when stressed, she slipped back into the habit of calling him by his surname. She didn't want to see what she knew would be on his face: enthusiasm, a desire to fight for what he believed to be a worthy cause. Rose wasn't saying that it wasn't a worthy cause, but she felt as though more people fighting would not help anybody anymore.

Wind rushed past her face, and she shivered. She could feel Scorpius preparing an argument, disagreeing with her. She might not have been his best friend, but she knew him well enough to know that he was patriotic if nothing else. His country was always right, always on the right side, acting the right way. She didn't want to hear him go on about how the United Kingdom was perfectly correct in acting as it did. She just wanted peace.

"Scorpius, can we not talk about this right now?" Rose murmured, a defeated air hovering about her. She knew she could not change his mind about going to fight, or about the glories that it would present him with, how it would change his family's reputation once and for all.

Scorpius gazed at her with those eyes of his, those eyes that made her feel weak and strong at the same time. "You're just running away from the problem, Weasley. But, sure, if you want to we can talk about puppy dogs."

The conversation was passed over, pushed to the back of her mind. She knew what was coming, she knew the inevitable but she decided that she would fight it in her own way, if she could.

That night, as she lay in her bed staring up at darkness, she remembered her dictionary. Suddenly, one of the words that she had loved so much when she was younger presented itself to her and she closed her eyes at the whole irony of the situation. She had just found the perfect word to describe one of Scorpius's characteristics, the one that was causing her so much pain. 'Jingoistic'.


	2. Part II

**So, an explanation about this whole war thingy, just in case anybody was at all interested. I thought that, sometime in the future, it's kind of plausible that a war would break out. I mean, you can only get so many people on the planet before we start to fight for resources (food, water, oil, etc.). Obviously, I'm no expert, but I thought it would be interesting to include it into the story as I've never read a wartime Scorpius/Rose story before. I tried to make them both as different as I could from the other Scorpiuses and Roses that I've done previously, and I have to say that these were my favourites to write. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Nothing really prepared her for it, even though she had known it was going to happen since she had first had that conversation with him. The reality of it was something so different to the imagined version that she felt like both laughing and crying.

They had been sitting at the Gryffindor table - students frequently sat on other tables now; the teachers just didn't have the time or energy to care - when Albus has casually slipped into the conversation that he had signed up and was going to fight once term ended. The table immediately broke into an uproar, most of the people worried and at the same time excited, others shaking their heads in disappointment. One or two found his announcement so uninteresting that they didn't even acknowledge it.

"But you're not finished with Hogwarts yet!" Rose cried in horror. Next to her, Lily was nodding speechlessly, staring at her brother in shock.

"Pfft. I'm seventeen. I'm allowed to sign up if I want to," Albus waved his hand dismissively. "It's not as if I'm going to be alone, anyway. Eric and Scorpius are coming with me."

Another uproar as Eric, a brash seventh-year who was known for acting before thinking, and Scorpius were beset by questions by their fellow students. Rose didn't notice the sudden rise in volume around her, though. To her, the world had gone incredibly silent and slow. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably in her chest. She stabbed weakly at a potato on her plate. He hadn't even told her himself. It wasn't as though she could just be told gently, little bit by little bit, was it? No. She had to be told all at once that Albus and Scorpius were both going.

She felt tears prick at her eyes. Those stupid, stupid children. Did they think it was all a game? People were_dying_ out there, yet all they could do was boast about how they had signed up and were going to avenge all those deaths. Oh, she was sure that had thought a bit about the hardships, but to them it wasn't real enough. It wasn't real to her, either, but the difference was that she at least acknowledged that she didn't know it all. They thought they that they knew all of it, that it would be as simple as reading those war books. She had seen Victoire's face when her cousin had received news that Teddy was hurt, had watched as Victoire made the decision to fight by her husband's side.

Her heart feeling as though hundreds of stones had been placed upon it, she chewed her potato and swallowed. Then she pushed her plate away and politely excused herself - not that anybody heard; they were too busy talking about that stupid war. Rose stumbled away from the Great Hall, walking blindly. She just wanted to be away from it all, away from that noise and enthusiasm, away from the pain of the students who had had family members die as a result of the fighting. Her own pain was enough at the moment.

She opened the door of an empty classroom, shutting it softly behind her. Rose didn't even bother to cast a Silencing spell on the door - it didn't matter; enough students cried nowadays that people would walk on by without being too suspicious. That stupid dictionary word, 'jingoism', flew through her head again. This time, though, she associated it with not just Scorpius but with Albus, Eric and the many others who had leaned forwards at that table and declared that they wished they could fight.

Fighting wasn't always a bad thing, Rose was sure. Victoire's choice to fight with her husband was noble, devoted. Some who fought did so because they truly wanted to help, truly believed there was no other choice. Albus, Scorpius, Eric and those others... they wanted to fight for the glory of it, because the idea appealed to them. All their generation had grown up with the tale of heroic Harry Potter who had fought and won against the Dark Lord. It sounded so simple, so easy. Rose knew it wasn't and she hated that Albus didn't seem to realise that. Harry was his father, after all. He should know better than anybody that war wasn't so easily solved.

The tears slid down her cheeks, cold and unfeeling. She was crying unlike she had ever cried before. These tears were distant, there only because she had to vent her hurt in some way and Rose had never been the kind to resort to physical violence or loud tantrums. Normally, crying offered her some kind of comfort, a way to escape and then feel better afterwards. This time, she would just emerge from tears knowing that the situation hadn't gotten any better.

The door opened softly, and Rose turned to look at the blond boy who had been one of her reasons for crying. He was smiling, actually _smiling_. When he saw that she was crying, however, the smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of concern. "Rosie, what's wrong?"

_Rosie_. It was the first time he had ever called her that. "I thought you were meant to be smart, Scorpius."

He sat down beside her, looking slightly sheepish. He gazed at his fingers, not entirely sure of what to say but talking anyway. "You shouldn't be so pessimistic. It's only going to be for a little while. Just a year or so; they say the war should be over soon, anyway."

"They've been saying that since it started," Rose said in a melancholy tone, a tear dripping off her nose and landing on the dark stone floor, turning the floor even darker.

Scorpius swallowed uncomfortably. "Look, if it makes any difference to you... I did think about it before I decided to actually do it. I know that you don't want me to go, but I need to do this, Rose. I need to fight. I want to do this."

"I know you do," Rose snorted inelegantly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Doesn't stop me from not liking it."

Scorpius stared at her for a long time, not saying anything. There wasn't much that he could really say, unless he told her he had changed his mind and was going to complete his seventh-year at Hogwarts. Looking at him made her feel unpleasantly weak in the knees, even though she was sitting down, so Rose stared at one of the many classroom chairs instead.

They stayed like that for a long time, him staring at her and her staring at the chair. When finally Albus opened the door to yell to Scorpius that two more people had decided to sign up, Rose had come to the conclusion that she was going to enjoy the next months as much as possible. It was the last time she would be at Hogwarts with Albus and Scorpius anyway.

* * *

On the last day of her sixth-year at Hogwarts, Scorpius asked Rose to walk with him around the grounds. For the first half an hour, they talked of NEWTs, careers, gossip, even magical beasts and how Rolf Scamander thought he had found proof for the existence of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Then, as they paused at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest, Scorpius turned to her and said something that she had never believed he would really say to her.

"Rose... I know this is really sudden and it's stupid me telling you now," Scorpius murmured, his eyes staring at her. Rose felt her heart-beat increase tenfold as she stared back. "I'm still going to go to war, and I still want to go... but I thought it'd be better for me to say this now than to write it in a letter. I'm shit at letter-writing anyway."

"What is it?" her voice was soft, barely audible.

"I love you," Scorpius breathed, and then suddenly he couldn't look at her anymore. He was staring at a tree nearby, then the lake in the distance, then the ground. "I know that you might not feel that way back, but I thought I might get it out into the open before another bloke started going out with you. Maybe you're right and the war will last a lot longer than we all think, and when I come back you'll be married and have kids or something... so I just want to let you know... I mean..."

He was rambling, but Rose found she didn't care. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She had dreamed of this moment so many times, yet once again life didn't seem to want to listen to her fantasies and she was hit with the rock hardness of reality. He was staring back at her now, and she could feel a small smile breaking out across her face. The situation might not be ideal, but then Rose found that she didn't mind settling for this. The fact that he was here now, and had said _that_, was enough.

"I love you, too," she whispered. Words that had been said countless times before, by so many people in so many countries, in so many different situations. Yet these words seemed brand new to her, and she marvelled at how she knew she would never grow tired of hearing him say it to her, even if he chose to say it a thousand times.

She kissed him. It wasn't passionate; she didn't feel as though it was the right time for a passionate kiss. It was more tender, more thoughtful. It was so horrible of her to think it, yet this might be the only time she would ever - could ever - kiss him and so she didn't want to be enveloped in a cloud of passion and longing. She wanted it to be free from that.

When they broke away from each other, she found that she was now smiling fully. They walked up to Hogwarts together, slowly, talking of things that, to an outsider, seemed so utterly normal. To Rose, though, every little thing they talked about, every little moment they shared as they walked, seemed more important than anything else in the world.


	3. Part III

**So, here's the last chapter! This is probably my favourite chapter of the three, maybe because I was in a more thoughtful mood than when I wrote the other two (the other two were written back-to-back in one sitting, whereas this one was written a day later). I hope it shines through :). Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

Life crawled on by. Rose was often struck by the strange similarity between her life and the lives of the heroines in Muggle war novels she had read. The first few months were the hardest, the summer holidays when even homework couldn't distract her from the fact that so many people she knew were out there, being killed or wounded, fighting for what was 'right', and here she was studying as though she didn't have a care in the world. Once, on one very hard day, she had reached into the back of her cupboard where the old dictionary lay, gone to the word 'jingoism' and crossed it out. She actually ended up obliterating it completely, so much had she come to hate that word. It was so stupid that just one little word could fill her with so much hate. Needless to say, she felt a lot better after she had done that.

The first term went by quickly, so quickly that she felt as though she hardly had any time to breathe. If somebody had asked her to look back on that first term of her seventh-year, she wouldn't have been able to remember much except for the miserable attitude in her dorm - most of her roommates had friends, relatives or boyfriends who had gone. One or two of her dorm-mates had even gone themselves.

Even years later, Rose remembered walking in on one of her roommates crying her eyes out sometime around the middle of the first term. Maybe that was when it hit her how much other people were suffering. She didn't need to ask why the other girl was crying - the whole school knew by then that the girl's brother had died in one particularly brutal fight. Suddenly, Rose couldn't believe how lucky she was - none of her family members had been anything other than lightly wounded yet.

The second term was much easier to bear. She had just become used to the whole idea of the people she knew being away. It sounded so harsh, so unfeeling, but it was true. Rose learned that she couldn't spend so much energy on wishing that something _could_ be like this, when it simply wasn't. Most of the people around her also started to cheer up. Somebody had, again, announced that the war was finishing. Rose didn't really understand exactly why the war had begun in the first place. Not many resources, sure, but how did fighting help? Her father had tried to explain to her how people fought over what they thought was rightfully theirs, and another country thought that _they_ had a claim to whatever it was as well, which was why this particular 'war' had started. Rose was beginning to think that maybe people were fighting because they didn't know peace - their whole generation was the first since Grindelwald to grow up without some kind of war happening in their lifetime.

It became obvious that something was changing, though. There started to be more food on the plates, more singing around the castle. One or two students even returned, although most decided to postpone coming back for their seventh-year until the new school year. Rose kind of hoped that maybe people would realise fighting didn't solve anything, and they would all come back home and think more logically about their moves. But, hey, life just didn't seem to work like that, did it?

Rose returned to her home for the Easter holidays. Normally, even up until the year before, her family had gone on some kind of holiday for Easter. This time it was decided that they would just stay where they were. More cheeriness was injected into the air, though, and her dad and brother started to argue about Quidditch again. Rose had never thought she would see the time when she was glad to hear somebody talk about Quidditch, but then again she hadn't predicted any of the events in the past half a decade or so of her life.

About a week before she returned to school, the weather turned ridiculously cloudy and miserable. Nobody wanted to step foot outside, instead deciding reading and playing boardgames was the way to go about life. Weasleys and Potters were crammed into the Potter household - everybody had decided it was Harry's turn to house the large family - and Rose began to feel as though she couldn't breathe, it was so crowded. Against everybody else's advice, she threw on a jacket, swung open the front door and stepped outside, feeling that a walk was in order.

The first drops of rain started pattering down about five minutes into her walk, but Rose didn't mind much. There wasn't the slightest whisper of wind, so the rain was peaceful rather than disturbing. It soothed her, allowing her the time to just wander around in her thoughts without somebody interrupting her with a story that she really didn't care about, which was what had been happening since term broke up.

Small puddles started to form on the dirt path that she had chosen to walk on. The path led away from the small town of Godric's Hollow and out into a more woody area. A crack of thunder sounded above her, and Rose smiled despite herself. Out here, it seemed as though she was just a little girl again, reading dictionaries and complaining about Quidditch. So much had changed since her eleventh birthday that it was crazy.

Rose hummed softly under her breath as she wound her way along the path. Damp leaves brushed against her hands and face, leaving streaks of wetness. Once or twice, her jacket snagged on a branch and she had to stop to untangle herself. A rush of nostalgia filled her as she remembered all the times she had done exactly the same thing, walking exactly the same route.

The rain increased and Rose ducked under a massive tree - she wasn't sure exactly what type of tree it was; she had never been good at Herbology. The minutes ticked by as she watched the rain drizzle downwards, racing away from the sky at miraculously fast speeds. Time seemed suspended.

Rose breathed in the smell of the damp forest, relishing it. She began to sing lightly - some Muggle song that her mother liked to listen to. For the first time since the war had been declared, she felt as though all her sadness and burdens had been washed away. Cleansed. She had never really appreciated how amazing it felt to not have to worry about anything but exams and homework. Incredible.

She heard soft footsteps squelching in the mud. Rose looked up to see a blond-haired figure making its way towards her. Her heart seemed to leap up into her throat, but she continued to sing unconsciously. No, it couldn't be him. He was away. In Germany, or France, or somewhere. Not here, not now. the figure drew closer and closer, until she could make out the features of the person. Yes. No. It was just a coincidence. He couldn't be here, he just coudn't...

He came closer still, until she could see the raindrops glistening on his forehead and in his hair. He was standing so close that, if she just reach out her hand, she would be able to touch him. A small smile curved his lips, and her heart decided to use this moment to drop into her knees. "I haven't heard you singing for a long time, Weasley."

She paused. Had she still been singing? "Is that really you?"

"No, it's your uncle Harry effing Potter," the boy - man - said. Rose smiled slightly. He had never been very fond of her uncle.

"Just asking. No need to be snarky," she murmured, but her eyes were glowing. A raindrop dripped off a leaf from the tree above her and landed on her head. She lifted her hand and touched her hair absentmindedly. "Was it very different?"

He didn't need to ask what she was talking about. "Yes. It wasn't as bad as the Muggle wars - they can't heal themselves like we can. Sometimes I found really civil opponents. Heck, I fought against one bloke who refused to use anything that physically hurt me. He died, though."

Rose inhaled sharply. It was so casual, the way he said it. As though it didn't matter when one life ended. She said nothing, gazing at the leaves on the forest floor, browning and soaked through. Half of her mind was screaming at her to ask more questions, but another half wasn't sure of what to say at all.

He noticed her reluctance. "You get used to it, Rose. The deaths. It sounds harsh, and maybe some people don't. I did. Maybe that was why I was put in Slytherin. Easier for me to tolerate violence."

His laugh was bitter. He had always been a bit cynical. Cynicism described him as well as jingoism, although Rose had always secretly thought they were a bit of a strange combination. Yet this bitterness was something else, something new. Rose found that she was more bitter now, too. Maybe everybody was but she just noticed it on him more, because she hadn't seen him since last school year.

"They let you fight so soon after you joined?" it was a stupid question. So stupid. But she had to ask. Lightning flashed in the distance, making his pale hair seem even paler than it usually was.

"They let anybody fight if you're persistent enough," he gazed up at the tree, not wanting to see her eyes, see the shadow in them. What he said didn't fit with her idea of the armies (she hated that word almost as much as 'jingoism') and their nobleness, genuineness. Liars, everybody who had said such wonderful things about joining up. That's what they all were in the end. Liars. How pessimistic was that thought?

"How did you know I was here?" she changed the subject, sensing that he wasn't keen to talk about it. She didn't blame him.

Scorpius turned to look at her, his smile returning to his face. "Your family said that you had gone out on a walk. I remembered you telling me ages ago that you liked to walk around in the woods, and they pointed me in this direction."

"You talked to my family?" Rose said sceptically. Boy, times had changed if he had managed to do that.

"Albus," Scorpius shrugged, scuffing the ground with his shoe.

Rose smiled brilliantly at him. "Albus is back, too?"

"Rosie, the war's over. For us, at least," Scorpius stared at her seriously, although the smile still lingered on his face. She found that she couldn't look away from him, taking in every little detail and trying her best to memorise them all.

"You've only called me 'Rosie' once before," Rose murmured, only half-thinking about what she was saying. The other half of her was involved in thinking about something more along the lines of how good it would be if she could hug him, kiss him again.

"Don't you want me to call you that?" he raised his eyebrows, and she punched him very lightly on the arm. This was new to her. He wasn't usually playful or joking at all, but she found that she loved it. She loved everything about him at this moment in time.

"Don't be stupid. I was just pointing it out," she laughed, and, although she didn't know it, the sound made him feel strangely breathless.

"Rose... you know, just before I left... I told you something," he started hesitantly. He didn't remove his gaze from her face, although she could see his cheeks going slightly pinker than usual. "I was just wondering if... you still feel the same way as you did back then? I mean, I'd be fine if you didn't... but... yeah... I just wanted to..."

She loved that she could make him ramble. She had never heard him ramble in front of anybody else except for her. "Are you accusing me of being fickle, Malfoy?"

"No... no, of course not," Scorpius hastily backtracked. "I just wanted to know... you know... I mean... it doesn't have to mean that you're fickle if your feelings change... it happens to everyone..."

Rose began to laugh. She stepped closer to him, so that their faces were only inches apart. How strange was it that suddenly all her worries seemed so completely obsolete, so utterly useless? All that mattered was this moment, what was happening right now. "Well, if it makes you feel any better... my feelings haven't changed."

A smile broke out on his face. Not just a small one, but a genuine one. He gazed down at her, and his eyes were glowing, actually _glowing._ "Well, I'm really glad to hear that."


End file.
